And then I left the room.
It confused her when I wouldn’t argue back. She could sense that I had grown more distant, that the familiar push and pull that stood in for intimacy in the dance between us had been modified without her approval. But it would have done no good to explain my motivation. Nothing I could do or say would ever make things better.
By the end of her life, I was mainly tap-dancing around her, trying not to be pulled into another pointless fight. For her, it must have been a little like being a boxer sitting in the ring, wondering why the opponent hadn’t shown up.
I am grateful to my mother for inspiring me to learn about narcissism. Thanks to her, I am better equipped to function in my hometown of Los Angeles, a city so overrun with narcissists that being able to identify one is as crucial to your well-being as owning a car or a cellphone. I’ve developed sonarlike early-warning detection abilities, fine-tuned by decades spent as the distributor of overblown praise and the recipient of browbeatings.
I still think back proudly to a flirtation at a party a few years ago with someone who set off all my narcissism alarms. There he stood, alone, brooding, self-absorbed, and artistic, but also hilarious in a sly way. I knew instinctively, and from years of practice, that the way to draw him out of his shell was by asking probing but flattering questions, then listening to his answers with rapt attention bordering on awe. If I followed that up with extreme empathy and selfless offers of support, he would be mine. I could make love to him (or at least perform oral sex) and, if I was lucky, afterward also help clean his house and put his schedule in order.
Despite the fact that every micron of my body begged to do these things, I watched myself with amazement as the voice coming out of my face said instead, “Well, you seem like a smart guy. I’m sure you’ll figure it all out.”
And then I turned and went off to talk to someone else.
In my head, I received a big round of applause.
One last pearl of wisdom: If, after reading this, you are haunted by the fear that it might be you I am talking about, you are definitely not a narcissist. Narcissists never identify with anything that could diminish their opinion of themselves. On the other hand, if you don’t recognize anything of yourself in any of the things I have mentioned, you might want to consider a career in show business or politics.
* A few years ago I was asked to write about “a valuable life lesson.” This layman’s explanation of narcissism was the result. Upon publication, I got so many responses from people who, like myself, had been previously puzzled, saying, “Thanks. I was wondering what that was!” that I have included it here, in the name of being helpful.
Saturday Night with Hieronymus Bosch
ATTENDING SATURDAY NIGHT’S MUCH-ADVERTISED “FETISH Ball” at the Hollywood Athletic Club seemed like the perfect idea for a story. The laughs will come fast and furious when fish out of water meets Fetish Ball, I said to myself. And I was right. Quickasthis I sold the idea to our big alternative weekly.
That made me happy, but I was even happier after a chef I knew told me that he attended the Fetish Ball every year and was really looking forward to it. That helped to humanize the event for me—to remind me that beneath the Félicien Rops imagery would beat the hearts of actual people, with internal organs and nervous systems and everything. I felt happier still after a large group of my friends called to say that they would love to tag along. I pictured all of us in funny outfits, talking to unusual people. And, failing that, good-natured, fun-seeking, boring people who dressed up weird. Not only would a good time be had by all, but now I was no longer worried about being pulled into a dark alley at stiletto point by Jack the Foot Worshipper.
My positive outlook continued undiminished for the rest of the week … right up until the Friday afternoon before the ball, when every last one of my so-called friends called to chicken out.
Apparently I would be going alone.
Okay, I said to myself, let’s take this one step at a time. No reason to panic. It’s just another job covering a party in Hollywood, for crying out loud. But still, by any measure, it seemed untoward: a woman attending a fetish ball by herself? What in God’s name was I supposed to wear?
It was one thing to construct an odd, fetishy Halloweeny kind of outfit to show off at a party full of silly, ironic friends. It was quite another to get dressed up all bizarre and sexy, leave the house unescorted, drive through Hollywood in daylight, and then exit my parked car alone, still wearing the exotic getup. Further complicating things was the fact that my goal for the evening was neither to find dates nor to acquire any new deviant people in the friendship category. I did not want a buckle-and-zipper-laden guy in a big rubber dick suit wearing a ball gag to follow me out to my car when I left.
No, my plan, or what I laughingly thought of as one, was to be a fly on a cleanish expanse of wall so I could write some kind of hilarious essay while maintaining a safe distance. I even thought briefly about renting an actual fly costume but became concerned that there might be a fetish involving walls and flies.
So I went back to examine the original invitation. Of the choices it offered in the dress-code category—Leather, Vinyl, Fetish Glam, Uniform, Formal, Gothic, Drag, Storybook/Fairy Tale—Storybook/Fairy Tale seemed to offer the most possibilities. What would it mean to the room at large if I went as a character from A Charlie Brown Christmas? I wondered. Wasn’t that a storybook by some definition? How would a nice Metro bus driver’s uniform strike the other attendees? Would it give the appearance of a uniform fetish while also sending a subtle message that dangerous strangers should stay away? Or would I be busy all night long telling fetishists that no, I didn’t have change for a dollar?
Of course, it was all a moot point because there were no Charlie Brown, Metro bus driver, or even Amtrak uniforms at the one costume store that was still open on the sweltering Friday afternoon before the big event. Since I had let things slide until the last possible minute, I had backed myself into the corner of this empty store and now had to face down its underwhelming inventory. Nestled among the generic beards, mustaches, false eyelashes, and superhero outfits, I now had my choice of Power Rangers, Disney princesses, and costumes related to Shrek. The single-digit age recommendations on the boxes for these things meant that none was going to be a very good fit for me.
Of course, there were also the “adult” costumes, which ran more along the lines of “Haight-Ashbury Honey”—a “far-out, fringe-trimmed crop top with bodacious bubble design, matching bell bottoms, and a hip and happenin’ headband.” A half dozen thin, reflective fuchsia-colored pieces of plastic would transform me into “one fun, foxy mamma who will have all the disco dudes ready to move,” which, I supposed, was Fetish Glam, as long as my fetish was “Sad Cheap Retro Halloween Costumes That Never Sold.” Or I could buy one of those mini nurse/go-go dancer uniforms just like the ones the Red Cross nurses all wore that time a hurricane hit a brothel and everyone had to take refuge in an S&M dungeon.
Waist-deep in a murky stew of anxiety and modesty, I realized that my only truly viable choice seemed to be a black velveteen Vampira gown with an attached hood. Its dark color might afford me some camouflage, allowing me to vanish into the ballroom décor like a fuzzy black sconce. On the other hand, it could have the opposite effect, since no self-respecting vampires of the twenty-first century ever seem to be caught undead in this type of getup anymore. Even with their lower body temperatures and superhuman powers, the vampires of Twilight and True Blood would hardly deign to spend an eighty-five-degree evening in a bell-sleeved, floor-length, black-hooded, polyester-blend gown in Los Angeles in July.
By now, the store was closing. I really didn’t feel like doing any more shopping. So I bought the damn thing and brought it home.
The next night, I put it on, resigned to grinning and bearing it. And I did … for about five minutes. That was how long it took for me to feel the rivers of sweat coursing down the length of my body, from armpits to ankles. Even th
ough looking hot always ranks at the top of costume ball criteria, this was definitely not the hot that anyone hopes to achieve.
Which left only one other category option: leather.
I owned a gray leather skirt, a black leather jacket, and brown leather boots. None of them matched. And the combination looked more preppy than dominatrix. But, fingers crossed, once I passed through the leather detectors, I would at least be able to take the jacket off without being in violation of any fetish laws.
So I leathered up and then off I went … tra la la lala. Just a girl in eighty-five-degree weather dressed in enough leather to keep her warm in a Minnesota winter, headed for something called the Fetish Ball all by my FUCKING SELF.
The panic didn’t set in for real until I joined the line of cars stretching halfway down the block, slowly inching forward to enter the parking lot. After the car ahead of me stopped to drop off six bare-butted men, I wanted to scream to the valet who opened my door, “How much would you charge to come inside with me and pretend to be my date? Whatever it is, I’ll pay it! Seriously, dude. Name your price!”
Instead I composed myself, and moments later, flanked by a guy in chaps and another in a polyvinyl cop uniform, I strode boldly through the Hollywood Athletic Club front doors, wearing fifteen pounds of leather and at least fifty pounds of perspiration.
Well, to be more accurate, I strode boldly to a security desk by the door, where I waited as my full bottle of Evian was thrown into the garbage by two unfriendly men who glared at me icily. They then proceeded to search every inch of my purse with an intensity about twice that of airport security. For what? I wondered. Was a hostile security station itself a form of a fetish? Maybe one that featured angry, impatient authority figures who made their own rules and then had their way with you?
Once I’d been cleared, I entered a storm of strobe lights synced up to recorded music that was roaring out of amps the size of refrigerators. The entire building seemed to vibrate like a tuning fork. I could feel it in my spinal cord. It was like sitting underneath an unusually rhythmic subway train, something to which I have never aspired. When my eyes finally got acclimated to the darkness, I discovered two things. The first was: Shit! I got here too early. Leave it to me to once again be the only person in L.A. who takes the start time of anything seriously. Clearly no good fetishist worth their polyvinyl waist cincher would dream of showing up at a place like this before ten o’clock. The second was that there were many different theme rooms to visit. Most were still empty, though each was so loud that I could feel the strands of my DNA unwinding.
Massively ill at ease, and needing something to do right away, I headed for the closest room with a bar to accomplish the first order of business: separating myself from my wobbly ego via inebriation.
A naughty-lady-in-a-garter-belt-and-bare-chested-man-in-tight-leather-pants-cracking-a-whip performance was taking place on a small stage about ten feet from where I ordered a glass of white wine. That I was the entire audience for this bit of S&M cabaret was unnerving, to say the least. It was much too early and I was far too sober to face the responsibility of having to fake orgasm on behalf of some much larger crowd of people who hadn’t arrived yet. So I took advantage of the opportunity to grab a few cocktail napkins to wad up into balls and stuff into my ears. Then I wandered back out into the still mostly empty entry hall to watch the happy fetishists trickle in the front door.
Positioning myself against a back wall, clinging to a yellow legal pad like it was a life raft while pretending to sip from my now empty glass, I heard an odd kind of parade commentary running in my mind.
Oh look. The orthodontia contingent has arrived, in their polished and gleaming bite-plate headgear. And right behind them … why, it’s the Butterfly People! Followed by the solemn precision marching of the Irritable Leash Brigade. Let’s give them all a nice hand! No wonder they look angry. It takes a lot of hard work and practice for primates to maintain that crawling position. And here come … the Ancient Greeks, for centuries a Fetish Ball favorite, the timeless formality of their togas complementing as well as contrasting with their startling lack of undergarments. My, but it’s a nice turnout this year for those swashbuckling crowd-pleasers, the Pirate Brigade! Carefully tended facial hair, dangerous accessories … is there anything these guys don’t have? Wow! Will you look at who has just walked in the door! Everyone’s favorite: DIAPER BOY! Behold how his pale, naked torso shimmers in the black light as he waddles through the security checkpoint.… Hey. How come they stopped me but they didn’t stop him?
Heading for the main ballroom, I became preoccupied with the plushie standing near the entrance. Dressed in a sad-eyed panda suit embellished with angel wings, he stood unmoving as scantily clad women came up to pet him. Poor little sad-eyed, harmless, adorable panda angel … all he ever wanted was to cuddle! Come sit on his lap and give the big panda a hug! Just remember to pretend you don’t feel the sweaty erection of the guy inside the suit as he pushes against you, same way you pretended you didn’t when you slow-danced with that pale creepy boy with the clammy hands at your junior high dinner dance.
By eleven o’clock the main ballroom, a dark, cavernous chamber with a big stage on which a continuous live burlesque show seemed to be cycling in an endlessly repeating loop, was nearly full. None of the many provocatively costumed attendees in their restrictive, revealing outfits or super-high platform stilettos seemed at all challenged by the gale-force velocity of the amplified sound waves. Clustered together and towering above me on the ballroom floor, they formed one of the few crowds of people collectively over seven feet tall who showed no signs at all of playing basketball.
Apparently the idea of conversation was not a fetish that interested anyone, as it was almost impossible to hear even a shouting human voice in the midst of the vibrating roar. “What are you supposed to be?” I tried yelling at a white-haired man in his sixties dressed in a mysterious robe-and-jockstrap ensemble topped by an asymmetrical crown.
“What?”
“WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?”
“KING NEPTUNE! I HAVE A FISH FETISH!” he screamed back, dangling a fishing line with a Caucasian-colored latex dildo hooked onto it in front of my face. Unable to think of a witty retort of any kind, I smiled, nodded, and moved on, wondering whether his outfit had started with the dildo or the crown.
Talking was also out of the question for the vaguely human creature who lay on the floor breathing through a plastic strawlike tube, trapped between layers of form-fitted black latex sheeting stretched across a rectangular frame. He or she looked like an oversized, poorly labeled liverwurst packaged for travel to a distant planet. I had stumbled into the latex room. Against one wall was a platform stage on which latex-clad women, like shiny intergalactic girlfriends of the Fantastic Four, were cavorting and striking threatening poses. Nevertheless the full-enclosure vacuum bed on which liverwurst person was stretched and shrink-wrapped into complete immobility seemed to be a bigger draw than the sexy ladies. A crowd of people stood around, staring quietly at this unidentifiably gendered person trapped like a gnat in a spiderweb. For a childhood asthma sufferer like myself, something about seeing the restricted oxygen supply being meted out by the tube was so unnerving that I stumbled backward into a light switch and accidentally turned on all the lights in the room. “Lights on” was definitely a fetish no one here seemed to like in the least.
Beating a hasty retreat back to the crowded hallway, I tripped forward into a tall, thin man in a fifteenth-century brocaded French cavalry uniform with knee-high boots, brandishing a riding crop. He smiled. It was my friend the chef, having the time of his life. “What are you so freaked about?” he shouted, reading the anxiety on my face. “Ninety-nine percent of the people here are not in the least bit dangerous. You want to know who is dangerous here? See those four jocks in T-shirts and jeans over there who probably snuck in?”
“How do you know they snuck in?” I asked him.
“Well, they could neve
r have gotten past security in those clothes,” he replied. “They are the kind of guys who scare me. The straight ones. They might get drunk and hurt somebody.”
By now, both floors of the place were filled with wall-to-wall revelers. Each room had been transformed into a seething holding pen for the extras from a James Ensor painting. As the hour grew later, the crowds kept getting bigger and bigger, until the whole place was a simmering, pulsating petri dish of human eccentricity … as if Hieronymus Bosch had thrown a party in which only the species with the most aberrant mating habits were permitted to attend: only the frigate birds, the bat-eating centipedes, the night-swimming scorpions, the cannibalistic, sexually doomed praying mantises. And as befits nature at its strangest, every interaction came complete with an elaborately staged and carefully choreographed tango. Leave it to humans to take something as basic as courtship rites and add details so complicated that they required the invention, manufacture, and international distribution of polyvinyl chloride.
I had begun the evening with every intention of maintaining a spirit of amused journalistic tolerance. I considered myself a graduate of Basic Freak Culture 101, having studied in both Los Angeles and New York. I took it for granted that I had long since lost the ability to be truly rattled by the entertainment ideas of my fellow humans. Therefore, I expected to find tonight’s event surprisingly engaging, titillating, and funny. That’s how it usually works with me: I approach skeptically, then empathy takes over, and next thing I know, I’m pricing latex underwear online.
What I’d never expected was for so many of these costumes to look like a road map to someone’s childhood abuse. Where I’d predicted benign eccentricity, I began instead to hear unanswered questions: Was that pierced guy in the harness with the spike-studded neck stretcher the victim of a violent father? That poker-faced, obese, freckled girl in the tutu who sat obediently chained to the feet of the biker in the leather chaps, her pale legs folded under her like bolster pillows—what frightening, long-buried scenario from her childhood was playing and replaying in her head as she knelt there? Was this a fantasy that came from a lifetime of social rejection? Or was acting sad part of the way she showed a sadistic biker beau that she cared about him and was having fun? What sequence of disturbing events had led a guy who usually got up in the morning and worked at the window of a bank to come to this stifling-hot room dressed like a ten-year-old girl in an Alice in Wonderland pinafore, knee-high white stockings, and Mary Janes? Did he have a disturbed mother, like the woman that raised Sybil, who’d forced him to dress like a little girl? These kinds of questions began to sand the funny edge right off of things for me.
Cool, Calm & Contentious Page 7
